And then it was on into May, and suddenly the morris season erupted, like a beautiful butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, or, if you prefer, like a bunch of BBs being forced to show the wider world all the faults that had accrued during the practice season. For many teams, Mayday itself means up at the crack of dawn and cavorting round on a cold and bleak hillside to a very small, cold and bleak audience, but BB prefer a more leisurely start to the month. And so it was that our first May event came on May 3rd with a trip to Hastings to take part in the Hasting Jack in the Green weekend, the first time the team had been since 2015. Ably led by Tom, the team acquitted itself very well, both with other teams and when on their own. 20 dances were performed during the day, and it was summarised by one team member as ‘a lovely day of humour, silliness and camaraderie’ which is, after all, largely what the team is about. Oh, and the dancing of course. This was followed the next day by another appearance at the Wokingham May Fayre, along with Taeppas Tump and Borderline. Another excellent day, including a memorable (for all the wrong reasons) Jolly Jockey, and culminating in a ride at the end of the day on the Wokingham Lions train, which during the day had been pulling excited children all around the Elms Field area, the main hub for the event. During the ride it appeared several BB members were just as excited as the children though we’re not sure everyone really had to keep going ‘choo choo’ all the way round. Then just a few days later we were back in Wokingham for Jameson’s (walking) birthday tour – well attended, possibly on account of the promised cake.
There then followed a particularly busy week with 4 different events in 6 days – well, if you were Jameson that is, the only one to attend all 4 (though credit to BenL, David and Roy for managing 3!). The first of these was on Monday 11th May, when in the evening several local teams including a BB jig team met in Reading to welcome Duncan Bhaskaran Brown from Abingdon Morris, who was attempting to set a Guinness world record by dancing 200 miles along the Thames Path from London to Abingdon and back again in a week. Duncan duly arrived, and our jig team of Jamesdon, BenL and Roy performed 4 jigs to help him on his way (though of course he had already finished for the day by then…). The very next day a fuller team was at the Calleva Arms, Silchester, for a very pleasant evening with Basingclog, though it has to be said there was not a huge audience. And then just 2 days later, another BB representative team was in Windsor along with Windsor Morris to welcome Duncan again as continued on his Thames quest (which he would complete a couple of days later). The mega week concluded on Saturday 16th May with the Winchester MayFest, another good day of dancing in Winchester – always a fine place to dance with some imposing locations, not least in front of the Cathedral. The day finished for us with a spot at the Buttercross, where Jolly Jockey again proved memorable (will we never learn?), and towards the end of our dancing there was more than a hint of rain in the air. But being BB, it mainly avoided us, though the next team to perform was more unlucky, getting properly splattered – oh no, it was our dear friends Windsor Morris! – shame!!
